Contrast and b-mode combination for strain analysis in medical ultrasound imaging
AssigneeSiemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc.
InventorHuseyin Tek
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
For boundary detection, such as heart wall detection for strain or another quantification, the boundary is detected using multiple types of imaging, such as B-mode and contrast. The confidence in the detected locations is used to form a more accurate boundary, such as replacing low confidence locations from B-mode imaging with higher confidence locations from the contrast imaging. Even where experts may struggle to identify boundaries, a more accurate boundary is created and used by the image processor or processing.
Claims20
A method for boundary detection of a heart wall with a medical ultrasound system, the method comprising:
- combining locations of the heart wall detected from B-mode imaging by an ultrasound scanner with locations of the heart wall detected from contrast imaging by the ultrasound scanner into a heart wall boundary, the locations for the heart wall boundary selected in the combining based on confidence in the locations;
- and
- displaying the heart wall boundary and/or a strain calculated from the heart wall boundary.
A system for contrast and B-mode combination, the system comprising:
- a transducer;
- a transmit beamformer configured to cause the transducer to transmit first pulses for B-mode imaging and second pulses for contrast agent imaging;
- a receive beamformer configured to form B-mode signals responsive to the first pulses and contrast agent signals responsive to the second pulses;
- an image processor configured to detect heart wall locations over time from the B-mode signals, to detect the heart wall locations over time from the contrast signals, and to replace the heart wall locations from the B-mode signals with the heart wall locations from the contrast signals based on relative confidence;
- and
- a display configured to display an image based on the heart wall locations detected from the B-mode signals with the replacement heart wall locations from the contrast signals.
A method for processing medical ultrasound images, the method comprising:
- detecting first heart wall locations in B-mode images and second heart wall locations in contrast images;
- determining confidence measures for the first heart wall locations and the second heart wall locations;
- identifying true boundary points from the first and second heart wall locations that have corresponding confidence measures exceeding a threshold;
- spatially aligning the B-mode images and the contrast images by applying a landmark-based registration using the true boundary points as landmarks;
- and
- generating a combined heart wall boundary from the aligned B-mode and contrast images.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.